On Sunday 1st of October, Spain tried hard to ban the Catalan independence referendum led by the Generalitat de Catalunya and approved by the parliament of Catalonia. The referendum was deemed illegal by the constitutional court of Spain and voters were met by the chillingly brutal police action. History is repeating itself as in 1909, Madrid violently repressed Catalans, who refused to be sent as reinforcements when Spain renewed military-colonial activity in Morocco on 9 July, in what is
Eli Hadzhieva, a lawyer and founder of Dialogue for Europe believes that excluding the Sahara from the fisheries agreement concluded between and Morocco and the EU would jeopardize the stability of the union, including Catalonia and Wallonia in Spain.
The Spanish government is determined to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy, to restore the «constitutional order», according to Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the two major political parties in the country, Cuidadanos and PSOE, support article 155 of the constitution that allows Madrid to take over running of the region. Strangely, the two parties that have backed in the past the Polisario Front refuse to show Catalans the same kind of support.
Two days after the Catalan independence referendum, King Felipe VI of Spain accused the regional government of Catalonia of «violating the constitution» of the country and undermining «the harmony and coexistence in the Catalan society». On the other side of the Meditteranean, the king’s speech was welcomed by Moroccan officials as he insisted on unity and national sovereignty.
Authorities could not prevent thousands of Catalans from taking the streets and voicing their choices. Catalan officials said that 90 % of those who voted supported independence in yesterday’s vote. In the Maghreb region, the referendum of Catalonia almost went unnoticed. As Morocco showed support for Madrid, Algiers and the Polisario Front remained silent in an embarrassing way.